Exhibition: The man who Went mad on Paper, Cartoon Museum, London, until July 23 2012

The Cartoon Museum pays tribute to Britain’s first master of 20th century cartooning, HM Bateman, in a display featuring 120 images of his most famous work.

Bateman liked to indulge in people watching. He is best remembered for his series "The Man Who…", which featured witty observations of instances of social faux pas.

The cartoonist started drawing at 15, when the genre was limited to straight illustrations with an accompanying joke.

Bateman took a fresh approach, drawing out the humour of the situation to show people as they felt, rather than appeared. As he put it, he “went mad on paper”.

His innovative style influenced the early artists of The New Yorker and he is still recognised by modern illustrators, including Ronald Searle, Ralph Steadman and Harvey Kurtzman, as a figure of inspiration.

The museum is showing The boy who Breathed on the Glass in the British Museum, which Bateman created during the First World War, as well as The One-Note Man, which inspired a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 film, The man who Knew too Much.